Marginalia: Odysseys & Oddities - Ego Trips and Eyeballs

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This started as a Buddy Read of Ulysses with friends, and devolved into mania. Here are the notes and ramblings...

Ulysses Episode 12 – Cyclops
Pub. Pints. Propaganda.

Whew... Welcome to Barney Kiernan’s, where the stout is strong, the opinions stronger, and the patience very, very thin. This chapter felt like sitting in the back of a bar while someone shouts half-remembered history at you, throws out every Irish reference possible, and occasionally veers into full-on hate speech.

Bloom remains... Bloom. Thoughtful, weird, human.

The Citizen? 👹 Unhinged nationalist energy. Loud, aggressive, and not above lobbing anti-Semitic nonsense mid-Guinness.

And good grief, there are so many lists. Names, saints, animals, titles, whatever Joyce felt like tossing in. Some of it was genuinely funny. Some of it was exhausting. I may have... skimmed the rather longer, blustery ones.

🧼 Shoutout to Bloom, still somehow soft-spoken and holding his ground while surrounded by loudmouths and literal threats. The man has his flaws, but honestly? He’s the only adult in the room.

💬 Final thought: This chapter made me tired.

Quote of Note: "Love loves to love love."


The Odyssey – The Cyclops part
aka: "Nobody messes with Odysseus... except maybe his own ego."

There’s something oddly nostalgic about the Cyclops story, like a dad joke in epic form. I’m pretty sure my own father tried to get me with the "Noman" trick at some point growing up (my version says Noman, though I've heard others go with Nobody).

I got a tone crossover for Ulysses, but not a ton else. It’s classic trickster hero stuff... sneaky, clever, then immediately overconfident. "I’ve just blinded a man-eating monster and escaped certain death… let me now yell my real name at him while he’s throwing boulders at me from the shore."
Sure, Odysseus. Real smooth. 🤦‍♀️

Epic? Yes. Humble? Not so much.
But hey, it makes for a great story, and honestly, this whole bit reads like something you'd hear from a friend after a few beers at the pub bar (the lingo is rubbing off on me). Wild, chaotic, and somehow... charmingly unhinged.

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